Overcoming Speechlessness by Alice Walker

July 28, 2009

When I was in college, I remember reading THE COLOR PURPLE in an American studies class and marveling at how someone could write of such horrible indignities done on to someone with such dignity. I still am in awe of such a skill, and I was reminded of it yesterday during a bout of insomnia–I had to be up for a radio interview with Dr. Alvin Jones at 5 p.m., and knowing that you have to get up too early and having doubt in your ability to hear your cellphone alarm is one of the best guarantees of insomnia– so I gave into sleeplessness and found myself reading Alice Walker’s blog regarding her trips to Rawanda, the eastern Congo, and Gaza. And I thought it’s not just the writer that writes with dignity in the face of tragedy, it’s also the people who live with dignity amidst tragedy.